Spiritual and Religious Leaders Discuss Tsunami - Deepak Chopra Representing Hinduism?

I watched this circus the other night on CNN's Larry King Live. He had a panel of six religious leaders discuss the Tsunami. Among them was Deepak Chopra. Now he was not introduced as representing Hinduism, but it really seemed (perhaps to the uniformed viewer) that Deepak was the Hindu representitive. It was obvious that he was speaking from an impersonalist New Age view. It is just sad how time and again, at least in America, "Hinduism" is sadly unrepresented and grossly missunderstood. People's impressions end up coming from movies like Laura Croft Tomb Raider, where multi-armed demonic statues come to life to get her.

Watching these guys was definate entertainment. Especially watching R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary trying to assert Jesus Christ as the one true way to salvation every chance he got to speak, where as everyone else kept their remarks simple and relavent to Larry's questions. I was midly amused that I found the Catholic priest an intelligent, humble, open minded guy. I tend to be very critical of "collars" and 'Baptists" based on my past experience...

Anyways, I saw Jagats posting, "Does Hinduism Teach That All Religions Are The Same" and was reminded of that. I found the transcript and linked it below.


Spiritual and Religious Leaders Discuss Tsunami Tragedy

Alas, as the essay Jagat posted about the religious divisions among the tsunami survivors illustrates, not everyone can come together in such a crisis. Sometimes our search for meaning in the face of tragedy leads us to confirm our salvation and specialness in opposition to members of other faiths. That gives us a false sense of security and is definitely not one of the better traits of humanity. (And who knew there was such a thing as a militant Buddhist? Seems like an oxymoron to me!)

In the Larry King discussion I found it interesting that it was Deepak who thought to mention that there were no women asked to speak. There is no shortage of women clergy these days, so that was quite an oversight in my mind! What surprised me even more was the fact that Rev. Mohler actually defended this as proper!

The question of why bad things happen to good people is a long debated one and this was a nice discussion of it. I think "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer as well. We might not always understand everything about how the universe works, and that's ok. It just may not be comfortable.

To those who always rush to cite sin as the reason for such things, I can only point out the relative health and well being of some of the serial killers, child molestors and rapists of the world. I can't believe that sin (or karma) is the reason for a tsunami. It simply doesn't make sense with all available data. Nor can I attribute survival to virtue. In some cases the survivors are actually suffering more than those who received a quick death. I tend toward the explanation that these laws are set in motion and sometimes that unfortunately results in some humans dying earlier than they otherwise would have. Our meaning must come from how we respond. Finger pointing is an unfortunate response, increasing the suffering of others rather than alleviating it.

yes, my wife and I cringed at Mr. Mohler's reply to that

I liked Deepaks suggestion about the collective conscious of the world perhaps adding to the strains of Mother Earth. I don't know how that flies with vedic knowledge, but I have always felt that we tend to set the scene, as it is...(I used to be a big Creative Visualizationist) and the degraded state of mind that is so prevelent may just bring about more and more progressively worse natural tragedies.

I was remembering how 9/11 brought about this "stoical" "let's bond together and kick some terrorist butt" mind set, that thru that tragedy, such negative consequences (in my opinion) resulted. I am hoping that the Tsunami will have a simular effect and perhaps succeed in uniting the world in a common "good" struggle... such as I seem to be hearing in the news from time to time.

Karma? I don't know if I can blame a collective "Karma".... rather how collective prayer (like Deepak mentioned) can have an effect, so can a collective "stress" have an effect.

One could as well say that this broad umbrella of beliefs under the label of Hinduism is not clearly defined in India as well. While there is a cultural history in India of the practice of the many beliefs one could call Hindu, these practices and beliefs have an ebb and flow in the passage of time.

Personally, I have found understanding not in a unifying theology but in the dance of life which is love.

I personally cannot see how anyone could be smug enough to pass an opinion on the "spiritual" or "religious" views of the tsunami tragedy. It was a tragedy, plain and simple. Why do religionists want to think of everything in a way that suits their spiritual beliefs and rationalize it in that way?

Most "religionists" suppose a benevolent and omnipotent God. But If God is the cause (or at least the allower) of catastrophes, suffering and other wrongs, then He can't be really benevolent - unless He has some cause to punish the victims: their sins of previous lifes, or their inner Godlessness, etc. The followers of this idea are attached to both the teaching of benevolence and same time that of omnipotence. So they are forced to invent motives for God to temporarily suspend His benevolence towards certain people and beings.

Of course, there are at least three alternative solutions to this dilemma.

The actual communication between members of different religions I see as a positive as each is sharing their understandings or in some cases, trying to push their ideas on each other.

(Tapati)


A Golden Thought of the Week!

Viktor Frankl (the psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and who later developed an approach to psychotherapy he called Logotherapy, Theray by Meaning) once said something similar (citing from memory):

"It is not for you to ask, What is the meaning of life? It is YOU who are being asked, by life. To Life, you can only respond by becoming responsible."

Frankl believed that it's futile to look for a general, universal, abstract meaning to life. The only meaning that's worth something is a concrete, individual meaning the person has arrived at.

I believe him.

I met Deepak a number of times when I was in Hindustani Music promotion.

He did not impress me in any way even though his books seemed popular.

On another forum, I found peops saying they wont give aid because much of what was hit was Islamic. One site even had a pic with a guy looking at some corpses and on him he had an Osama TShirt on.